Such a Silly Baby!
By Steffanie Lorig
and Richard Lorig
Illustrated by Amanda Shepherd
10 x 9-5/8 in; 36 pp ; full-color throughout, ages infant-4
Hardcover
Published in December, 2007
ISBN 0811851346
ISBN13 9780811851343
See more product details
$15.99
Reviews
As preschoolers will undoubtedly note with glee, the title of this book should be "Such a Silly Mommy!" After all, it's Mommy who can't manage to go on an outing without bringing home an animal instead of her offspring. Whatever the destination, the refrain is always the same: "But there was a hitch.../ my baby got switched," and clueless Mommy ends up with, say, a chimpanzee, while Baby takes up residence in the monkey house. Baby is always retrieved with the turn of a page, but the spreads give readers plenty of opportunity to savor his briefly unsupervised cavorting in a comic, exotic setting. Exuberant, hand-lettered text practically demands audience participation on the animal noises ("oo... oo... ee... ee..." for the chimps). Paired with this husband-and-wife team, Shepherd (Fiona Loves the Night) illustrates in the Nadine Bernard Westcott vein; she revels in buoyantly hued silliness and goofy visual asides. A firm hand, however, guides these compositions, most evidently in Shepherd's use of thick, textured fields of color, and readers won't get overwhelmed. —Publishers Weekly, starred review
The hapless mother in this bouncy rhyming tale just can't keep track of her silly baby: he gets switched with the chimpanzee at the zoo, with the dancing bear at the circus, with a lazy sow at the farm, and with a buffalo at the Wild West show. Then, when she finally gets the child home for a nap, all the animals follow. The flexible tot makes himself right at home in every new environment, swinging from the ropes with the monkeys, walking the tightrope, rolling in the mud, and twirling a lasso. Each time he greets Mom again, he adds a new phrase learned from his animal friends, for a cumulative festival of animal sounds that storytime listeners will love. Shepherd's bright, wildly cartoonlike oil paintings perfectly reflect the wackiness of the text. Pair this with Audrey Wood's Silly Sally (Harcourt, 1992) for a simply silly storytime. —School Library Journal
A perplexed mom has trouble returning home from outings with her own baby in this boisterous debut from Team Lorig. Rollicking rhymes take readers around town as the pair visit the zoo, a circus, a farm and a Wild West show. Each time, though, Mom brings home an animal in place of her baby. "The circus came, I took him there. / We laughed at clowns with funny hair. / But there was a hitch . . . / my baby got switched, / and I went home with a dancing bear!" She returns the next day to swap them back, although by then her baby has picked up the mannerisms of the animal he has been impersonating. Repetitive elements make this a great one for shared reading. Shepherd's exuberant oil illustrations match the preposterousness of the text perfectly, cleverly building in visual cues to help readers guess what animal might be going home with Mom. A lively flight into imagination-mothers may never look at outings the same way again. —Kirkus Reviews
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| Kirkus Reviews | 2008-04-15 |
”Repetitive elements make this a great one for shared reading. Shepherd’s exuberant oil illustrations match the preposterousness of the text perfectly, cleverly building in visual cues to help readers guess what animal might be going home with Mom. A lively flight into imagination--mothers may never look at outings the same way again.“ |
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| School Library Journal | 2008-05-01 |
“...a cumulative festival of animal sounds that storytime listeners will love. Shepherd’s bright, wildly cartoonlike oil paintings perfectly reflect the wackiness of the text.” |
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| Publishers Weekly | 2008-05-12 |
“..The spreads give readers plenty of opportunity to savor his briefly unsupervised cavorting in a comic, exotic setting. Exuberant, hand-lettered text practically demands audience participation...” |
